


Three Months of a Day

by evilerrobinhood



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Hugs, I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M, Swearing, excessive amounts of take out, one bed, ressurection, sadly ai cannot fit on the bed, yusaku had a really bad 3 moths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28002210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilerrobinhood/pseuds/evilerrobinhood
Relationships: Ai | Ignis/Fujiki Yuusaku
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

Dull sunlight, choked by storm clouds and freezing rain, leaked through the windows, past the curtains that had gotten untied from the harsh winds. The chicken wire mostly kept the rain out, but he really needed to get that window fixed. It’s not like it’s that important, compared to all the other things Yusaku had to do. 

But at least fixing the window would be productive. The biggest thing that Yusaku had to do, sleep, was far less productive. But he could barely see, his vision had started warping and rusting from fatigue, and more caffeine would lead to him losing even more time from having a heart attack. 

But hesitance still shook him as he fell down on his bed, the cold sheets and hard mattress were already uninviting, but it was marginally better than the floor. With Roboppi gone who knows what’s down there. Yusaku wasn’t cleaning up, that’s for sure. He couldn’t find a trace of Roboppi, unlike how Ai was still scattered through Vrains, like someone spilled glitter into its coding. 

_Very precious glitter_. Yusaku had managed to convince Zaizen and Queen to shut down Vrains, through a mixture of being owed, lying and also a few threats. Mostly just threats, Yusaku hadn’t been in the greatest of headspaces at the moment. But the data wouldn’t get deleted or otherwise processed, it bought him some time. 

Playmaker is probably a public enemy again, but he could fix that problem later. His reputation has always been shaky, but he’ll either end up saving the world _again_ or hopefully he and Ai would be able to fade out of the public eye and never touch a card again. After three different life or death run-ins with dueling Yusaku was fairly ready to bury his duel disk and set the grave on fire, or at least convert it into a permanent gremlin holder. 

He’d probably have to lock Ai down again, at least until they can have a good conversation about all of this. He can’t do this again, he can’t lose Ai again, no matter how much Yusaku wants to trust him-

And he really needs to find a better place for the SOLtis. He had dragged it back with him on an odd impulse after the duel. For the first couple days he was expecting it to stand up and start annoying him, but at this point all he expected is to be stared at when he’s sleeping. Ai did that before all of this, but it’s far more creepy when it’s a soulless husk. 

He wouldn’t have admitted it at the time, but having Ai constantly hanging off of him was nice. He noticed the stark lack of Ai hugs now, at least. He would probably be a little dangerous with the weight of a person, but he could live with a few broken ribs. SOLtises may be pretty light, but Ai had an impressive vigor to him.

Ai’s eyes had gone out after a few days, leaving them a dull grey. He should probably plug it in before he rebuilds Ai, but it probably just ran out of battery. SOLtises are surprisingly still being sold, worst case scenario he could acquire another SOLtis if this one wouldn’t work. Ai can actually manifest out of a lot of screens, and commit all sorts of shenanigans with his many very important computers. 

Generally he stayed out of anything hugely important, and Yusaku didn’t have much on his computer that Ai would find of particular interest. He basically looked through all his files once and got disappointed over the lack of blackmail potential. Of course that didn’t stop Ai from finding new things to blackmail him over, not much could keep that from happening. 

Thank god he couldn’t read minds, he’s been dreaming a lot about Ai. Typically nightmares, but that would just get him some light concern and a loving pat. No the other dreams were him and Ai were safe and everything was happy, that would get him teased to death. Particularly the one with the kiss if Ai somehow knew about that he would _never_ live that down. How did it take so long for Yusaku to realize how much of an obvious crush Ai had on him, how did it take so long for him to realize _he_ had a crush on Ai for like, the last month and a half. 

That was definitely going to have to be addressed. A lot of things were going to have to be addressed. Programming, even the incredibly delicate and agonizingly complicated task of basically stitching a person back together without breaking anything, was something Yusaku had an excess of talent and skill in. Delicate conversations however, he would handle better if you stuck him in Antarctica with nothing but a loincloth. 

The last important conversation he had with Ai ended in him dying, he couldn’t fuck up that bad again. He’d probably die as well if Ai managed to go off and die again, one time is far too often for Yusaku. He didn’t want to tie him up or lock him again, but who knows how Ai would react to being resurrected. Probably not very well, he wouldn’t blame Ai for that. In his place, Yusaku couldn’t even imagine it, really. 

But he had to persevere. One, he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t do all he could to reunite with Ai. Two, It’s possible that Ai would believe in what he said. Three, he loved Ai. He needed to say that, even if they didn’t have a future. God he should have said that when Ai was dying, it might have comforted him a little. He really needed to get out of the habit of never talking about his feelings. 

... He probably fell asleep. He feels awake enough, anyways. It’s still cloudy, although the rain has let up somewhat. Who knows what time it is, Yusaku wasn’t entirely sure what month it was. October, maybe? It’s probably been at least a month, if he were to guess. He would probably find the rest of Ai today. He said that every time he woke up, but any optimism helped. 

Yusaku practically went catatonic with his repetitive work, scanning over a ludicrous amount of code, and retrieving any code that belonged to Ai. He didn’t know the specifics of the Ignis coding, but it was unmistakably distinct from the rest of Vrains. Actually stitching together Ai’s code was going to be a nearly impossible task. No one said resurrection would be easy. 

Yusaku almost didn’t notice when he met the line count of Ai’s code, thankfully he had written that down before all of this happened, or he would probably look through Vrains forever, thinking he had missed a few stray lines of code. Maybe he did, that Ai’s code had changed over that time, or split up in ways he couldn’t recognize, or some had been properly deleted. 

But he couldn’t think that, he was telling Ai to be optimistic in a far more dire situation, the hypocrisy was obvious, even in the deep fog Yusaku hadn’t noticed he slipped into. So he went to the next, far worse task, of stitching Ai back together, with his blood if need be. It should at most only take a month or two more. Then he and Ai would be back together. 

The room was chilly, but Yusaku hadn’t acknowledged his bodily state when not absolutely necessary for the last 3 months, so he didn’t even notice. Ai’s code was far more familiar to him than he would have expected, considering he can’t recall a time he went out of his way to analyze the code. It was a far less intimidating task than Yusaku had estimated, even with the simply absurd amount of code he was handling.

Yusaku had created a small virtual disk on pretty much all of his electronics, since Ai would get huffy when he couldn’t harass him at all hours of the day. He might need to use that, as he couldn’t quite remember where he squirreled away his duel disk in a fit of Ai induced despair. Other than when he was out getting revenge or saving the world, Yusaku didn’t actually care much for duel monsters. 

And by now he’s raked up just an impressive amount of horrible things happening around that game. He honest to god wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually cursed. Half a year ago he would have enthusiastically denied the existence of magic, but considering he was crushing himself through the ringer for a goddamned A.I, something he would be equally incredulous over, it’s not that much more unbelievable. 

He and Ai had been in the cold before, he hadn’t done anything ridiculous at the time, but if it was now Ai would have been all over him. He’d prod at him, cooing over how cold it was, and hold his hands and hug him with his weird larger form. Or maybe he’d be in his SOLtis, wrapping them up in his large, absurd cape. In this weather nothing shy of an actual disaster would be able to stop Ai, he finds an excuse to cuddle in far fairer weather. 

God he’d probably make hot chocolate or something. That would be really nice really right now, but getting that sort of thing delivered is a pain. He could live off of take out, and he’d give his hands to be wrapped up in the cape, or Ai’s… appendages. 

But right now he needed his hands, but afterwards Ai could take whatever non-vital body parts he wanted. It was kind of odd it was still called take out, now that Yusaku thought of it. Almost all restaurant food is either delivery or dine in, even drive throughs had become rare fairly recently. 

Not like there was much to be done, it was just kinda funny. The task he was working on was inane when it was going well and thought stoppingly annoying when it was not. So naturally his mind wandered, mostly to Ai related subjects. Okay exclusively to Ai related subjects. Not his fault that Ai was so annoyingly adorable, and it’s not like he needs to pay too much attention. 

Having Roboppi around would be really nice. Yusaku was, well he was just really bad at taking care of himself, he hasn’t eaten a single vegetable in like? Actually he was not going to pursue that particular train of thought. He still has no idea how either one of them like soap operas, probably never would. But he could live with a bit of melodramatics, from a screen or a robot. 

After an uncertain amount of time, and another few boxes of take out, Yusaku was pretty sure he was finished. All that was left was for his program to compress the data, which was going to take a while. God he was really fucking tired. He was guzzling what was probably a lethal amount of caffeine, and was more jittery than an innocent man looking down a guillotine, but was still ready to fall down and never wake up again. He was going to go to bed, but rested his eyes for a moment on his desk and promptly fell asleep.

“Eh?” Ai’s voice was off, but he clearly had larger concerns. Mainly the rather pressing question of _why am I alive_ ? In hindsight the whole stunt he pulled was honest to god one of the dumbest things he’s done, including waking up Yusaku at 3am (it was an accident.) But he’s not entirely convinced by what Yusaku- _wait, where is Yusaku?_

When he realized he was in Yusaku’s apartment, but with a notable lack of Yusaku, Ai shifted from a ball of angst to a ball of pure panic. Did someone kidnap him? Was he just out oh god he’s on the desk. Yusaku somewhat resembled a dead bird, oddly fluffy and somehow looking a lot smaller than usual. Ever the optimist, Ai made the admittedly bold assumption that Yusaku had died. 

Jumping into an empty SOLtis he was definitely going to ask about later he quickly continued his planetary freak out in a far more mobile manner. To his relief, Yusaku was in fact breathing and seemed to not be actively dying, minus the fact he looked a bit like a drowned rat. Did Yusaku just get back from a hostage situation? 

He wasn’t great at taking care of himself, but he looked like he hadn’t eaten since the last time Ai saw him. He’s seen Yusaku in better condition in a literal war zone, but guessing by the state of the apartment that wasn’t the case.One thing was clear, Yusaku probably should be in bed. And then he needs to go eat a vegetable. 

Despite his rather bumpy ride, Yusaku hadn’t woken up as Ai put him down on the bed as gracefully as possible. The SOLtis was in surprisingly bad condition, probably one of his decoys. He had never actually intended to use them, so they didn’t go through any quality control or maintenance. At least it wasn’t a dud. 

Scouring through Yusaku’s mini-fridge, he found an old bottle of ketchup and very little else. They would have to figure out food later. There was a weird noise, did they need to call a repairman? 

Again! It’s coming from the bed, Yusaku is staring at me, why is he awake? “Do you need to be tucked in?” Ai attempts to speak, but a barrage of mangled syllables come out instead. Yusaku cringes, realizing he made an error again, not quite having processed that Ai was standing in his apartment yet. 

Not sure what to do, Ai makes a small leap over to the bed and lands with a fumble that he tries to disguise as a bow. Yusaku wasn’t terribly convinced, and his skeptical face translated that fairly well to Ai. Mainly though, he was concerned, the weight of what Yusaku had done finally starting to register. 

“Ai, what’s wrong,” Yusaku was pretty sure he knew, and it hit him a moment later that’s a really dumb question to ask someone who can’t talk. Ai tried to gesture a “I’m good,” to lukewarm success. “I think I messed up some code.” 

Knowing that the problem was software, Ai could probably fix it himself, but the implications of what Yusaku said branched through his mind. Yusaku brought him back, after all of that Ai was not quite surprised. But did Yusaku neglect himself that badly just to get him back? What would have happened if he couldn’t? 

An image of Yusaku wasting away in his cramped apartment hit Ai like a bag of bricks. Ai couldn’t simulate a world where he was dead, it was one of the few restrictions of the system. What was Ai supposed to do if, _oh god. Yusaku was going to die_. Ai was always a bit aware of that, that mortality was something inevitable. Humans are supposed to live for a hundred years, at least, but maybe Yusaku would just die young. Lots of people did.

But thinking that that could be prevented by his death, Ai really was an idiot. Roboppi was right. Yusaku saw Ai’s tense expression and began to speak. “It’ll be okay, Ai.” he paused to take a breath and collect his thoughts slamming against the confines of his skull. “One, whatever is wrong with your voice, we can go in and fix. Two, if we can’t, I’ll learn sign language.” Yusaku suddenly hit a wall with the third point, but he had something he had to say, now is as good of a time as any, he supposes. “Three, I love you.”

The quiet room was filled with the noise of Ai’s fans speeding up. He had no idea what to do, despite all of Ai’s prodding he never actually thought he would make it this far. His first instinct was to kiss Yusaku, but that would be too fast. They’ve been together for 30 seconds Ai didn’t want to ruin it _that_ fast. 

Ai was not given much more time, as Yusaku began hugging his arm sleepily, his mind quickly losing what little energy he had wrangled up. Eventually they fell into an awkward half hug cuddle, with Ai half off of the bed. He didn’t mind that much, and would quicker leave the body then move. 

He believed in what Yusaku said. He had backed himself in a corner before, but now that he had the luxury to, Ai understood. And even if Ai tried something, Yusaku clearly wouldn’t let him stay like that. But still, Ai wished Yusaku had just let him stay dead, the prospects of their future still ate away at him. 

Daylight was quickly fading, and Ai couldn’t tell what time it was. Another thing they’d have to fix. The auburn light suited Yusaku well, but then again Ai would find him breathtakingly stunning in pitch darkness. He looked really bad though, Ai was honestly not convinced that he didn’t get beat up or something. It was unbelievable how disheveled Yusaku was, his hair was spiking out in a totally different manner than it used to, his bangs were just a mess, somehow more pink then they were before.

Yusaku was in his rare mood of snuggly, and while Ai was a little concerned about his leg detaching, he was more than willing to continue his contortionist act. Worst case scenario he could just stick the leg back on, SOLtis joints are hardy. 

Despite being twisted in about 5 different directions, Ai managed to hug Yusaku back to the best of his ability. God is that one of his ribs? The first thing Yusaku is doing once he wakes up is getting some food in him. 

How long had it been? Was there some crisis causing this, food scarcity, illness? Was there a war going on under his nose? Yusaku wouldn’t bring him back into that sort of conflict, but then again he was clearly pretty desperate. 

But it would be okay. He and Yusaku could get through it together, it would be okay. Ai needed to believe in the future. Ai did believe in the future. This world is already unimaginably different from the simulations, and it always was. Even if the sky fell down, he and Yusaku would be able to get through it. 

Even though the sun had fallen into night, they’d fight to see the sun rise, tomorrow and all the days after that. 


	2. Chapter 2

Yusaku was quickly beginning to regret the invention of emoji. He had dug out the duel disk to be able to talk with Ai while they were fixing the variety of coding errors that Yusaku had made.  Although it’s more traditional use was for playing Duel Monsters, Ai had found it far more useful for spamming a variety of affectionate handmade emoji. 

Ai had, if nothing else, an impressive skill for being annoying. It would be great if Yusaku could just be annoyed over the variety of loving miniature Ais popping over the screen, but it was really more charming than he wanted to admit. It’s better than Ai bursting a socket from being bottled up all day. 

Although Ai’s clinging to his arm was rather inconvenient. Ai was more than capable of supporting his own weight, but seemed rather intent on using Yusaku as a support. That would have been fine, but Yusaku kind of needed his arms at that moment. “Ai, can you move?” 

Ai responded with an affirmative emoji and moved himself to Yusaku’s waist instead. It was a lot more productive but also Ai was definitely going to give him a heart attack one of these days. Ai was warm, and buzzing..? Another thing to fix, probably. The eyes are creepy as hell, apparently it was not a battery issue, but having him moving around and chirping like an over enthusiastic bird made the SOLtis far less creepy than it was before. 

Despite being functionally mute, Ai managed to fill a room with noise. Instead of excessive chatter he made a variety of glitched noises, mostly chirps and small warbles. Apparently nothing short of beheading could make Ai shut up. Not like he’d have it any other way, a quiet Ai would be rather nerve-racking. 

But all of this was pretty easy for Yusaku to ignore as he worked, and worked and worked. 

After an entire afternoon of working, Ai got rather concerned. Yusaku should probably eat something right around now, at least go harass the hot dog guy for some hot dogs, although a vegetable as well would be ideal. The hard part however, was getting Yusaku’s attention. His chirping had far since gotten filtered out, same with the text messages, but they were worth a try. 

After a good half hour of spamming Yusaku with concerned texts and annoyed emoji, Ai clearly had to change tactics. His first instinct, and probably the worst one to go with, was to hug Yusaku far more aggressively than he had been before. 

Unfortunately for Yusaku, aggressive was an understatement for that hug. He could feel all the air exit his lungs as he felt himself momentarily become more cylindrical. Ai definitely had his attention, he also had his ire, and rapidly deflated. After catching his breath he checked his duel disk and noticed a barrage of texts addressed to him. “You should go eat” “food” “Yusaku!” sprinkled with a variety of emoji. 

As much as Yusaku was annoyed with the delivery of this information, Ai did have a point, he probably should go get some food. Kusanagi should still be working at this time, he should go check in with him. He hadn’t even noticed it had been 3 months, Kusanagi must have thought he died. Honestly he could have died, and the irony there didn’t fail to hit him. 

Ai was happy to continue the conversion during the walk, first apologizing for his overzealous attack. Then saying he loves him, something that Yusaku had definitely picked up on by now. He responded with a simple “ik” which he realized wasn’t the most graceful reply a good two seconds after hitting send. He got a digital hug emoji in reply, overflowing in little hearts. It was far too cute, someone needed to reel him in before he took over humanity with that. 

Kusanagi was pleasantly surprised to see Yusaku, it had been a while. He was really underdressed for the weather, concerningly, and dear god he looked like death. Had he not eaten since Kusanagi saw him last? Neither party was quite sure how to address their concerns. Yusaku wanted to mention Ai and such, but the words stayed twisted and vague. Eventually he just settled on “Hotdog.” 

After a few moments of awkward silence, Yusaku was given three hot dogs and a few packets of ketchup. “...Thanks.” “Come again.” Kusanagi’s concern came out a little too aggressive, making him cringe. 

Ai chose that moment to pop his head out of the duel disk, having decided that Yusaku had missed a few too many of his texts while ordering. This conversation was unfortunately going to be far longer than Yusaku would want.

“Hey...Ai?” Kusanagi quickly got more awkward as he remembered that Ai probably died, although Yusaku had been understandably cagey about the subject. But now was probably not the time or place to interrogate Yusaku on whatever he did to resurrect Ai. Ai waved, far less confident than he was a moment ago. This was not a great show for his grand re-appearance. 

“...Ai’s mute.” Yusaku really feels like that could have been phrased better, but it was too late by the time he had said it. “Really?” If the context was better, Kusanagi would have joked about it, but at this point that would have been in bad taste, to say the least. “Well, I’m always here to support you two.” “Thanks.” Yusaku promptly took that chance to escape the conversation. 

Despite being a horribly awkward situation, it was nice to see Kusanagi. Once Ai was doing better, they could have a better conversation about it. Now he needs to focus on eating the hot dogs, lest Ai bring his wrath down upon him. Considering the condition he dragged himself into, Ai had the right to be concerned. 

The hot dog was good, better than a hot dog had any right being, really. He has no idea how Kusanagi does it. Ai held onto Yusaku’s free hand while they looked into the city from a bench. It wasn’t the most stunning view in Den City, but this everyday life could be a lot worse. Ai sent little hearts into the air via the duel disk, and if Yusaku could he would send one back in response. 

Even though it was cold, being there with Ai was better than being in his warm apartment alone. Ai heavily disagreed to his partner being out in the cold, however, and began to voice his displeasure via spamming texts. Walking home, the white streetlights and neon signs colored the streets, giving a sense of premature nostalgia.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished the fic! On to more fics in the future.

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a lot of really good fics for my favorite show, so I figured I'm gonna throw a few hats into the ring! I plan to make a second chapter of pure fluff, and a few other Aiball fanfics.


End file.
